Author: School-Age Programs and Services Committee

The School Age Programs and Services Committee is chock-full of School Age program geniuses. Want some inspiration for next summer? Read on! Denver Public Library – Amy Seto-Forrester We’re super excited about our weekly Factologists program. We’re focusing on a different nonfiction theme based around a book each week with different stations for kids to drop in and do. For instance, this Wednesday the theme is Super Sniffers, based around the book of the same name by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent. Stations will include scent identification (smelling mystery scents in cover dixie cups, things like vanilla, garlic, banana, lavender, etc.), a scent scavenger hunt (kids will be given a scent to track and a clue to follow. At each location they’ll find two clues attached to two scents. They must determine follow their tracking scent to complete the scavenger hunt or they’ll end up at a dead end), scat identification, and…

Early this year, I learned that my library was one of the lucky recipients of an ALSC & Dollar General Literacy Foundation “Strengthening Communities Through Libraries” grant. We used the funds to create STEAM programming kits to be used alone or in different combinations for outreach programs. Our vision was to take these kits into after-school care sites serving disadvantaged populations and deliver the same type of STEAM programs we would at the library. We put out feelers to multiple sites, asking if we could come once per month to deliver a program. We thought that we would be lucky to get our foot in the door at a couple of places. In reality, we got ten enthusiastic “yes, please come” replies within days. And that’s how we ended up doing fifty extra STEAM programs that reached hundreds of kids in just five months. Every month, we developed a basic…

It’s been an incredible week at San Francisco Public Library since the launch of the Scholar Card. What’s the Scholar Card, you might ask? This is an exclusive SFPL library card for all San Francisco Unified School District students in PreK – High School. With over 57,000 SFUSD students and 130 public schools in San Francisco, our goal is for every SFUSD student to activate their Scholar Card. Ambitious? We think not. What’s made this week so incredible is the positive response from SFUSD administrators, teachers, teacher librarians, parents, caregivers, and our own youth-serving librarians. With a streamlined library application process (read: no paper application and no parent/guardian signature required), we are hopeful that this will the key for students to access the myriad of resources that help them achieve academic success. With Scholar Cards, for free, students can: Access Library research databases Access language learning tools Receive…

March…how did that happen?!? 2017 seems to be passing with ever more speed. With much of the country enjoying warm temperatures recently, we can all hope that spring comes quickly. When winter finally leaves, my thoughts turn to BookExpo 2017, which will be held in New York City at the Javits Center, from Wednesday, May 31 – Friday, June 2. If you are not familiar with BookExpo, it bills itself as the #1 book and author event in the United States. Many ALA members attend the event in addition to ALA Annual, as the authors in attendance and books promoted at each are not the same…especially the authors! If you do go to BookExpo 2017, here are a few thoughts and tips based on my experiences that I hope you will find helpful: I encounter a lot people who work outside the library world at BookExpo, including non-profit workers, educators and…

Do you know any children’s librarians who don’t have a summer reading/learning program? I know I don’t. Summer reading and learning programs are a major aspect of most youth librarians’ work. There are many other additional responsibilities that are a part of our job, I encourage you to use the resources of Collaborative Summer Library Program. This organization of member state libraries produces a wealth of information to make your planning and administration of summer reading/learning less challenging.

Over the past year, my role with the Free Library has changed a bit. I had a baby and moved from West Philadelphia to a different branch in South Philly to be closer to home and my son. I started working with a younger demographic and started thinking more comprehensively about library outreach. One of the benefits of moving to a different branch is serving fresh new set of patrons in a different environment and responding/adapting to the challenges that come with a new place. While working in West Philly, I always kicked the around the idea of a mobile library in my head, not in a bookmobile form, but something more low tech, with a minimal footprint that could be easily sustainable. One of my mentors at the Free Library described how he used to roll a book cart up and down Ridge Avenue to get those books into…